15
Sep
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New AndroidPolice.com Feature: Instant QR Magic - Hover On Any Link In Any Post To Get The Corresponding QR Code [+Poll]

Posted by in Apps/Games, Off-Topic, Tips & Tutorials

Admit it - QR codes are useful. And cool. They allow you to instantly get any bit of information, most frequently browser or Market urls, onto your phone - all you have to do is download the Barcode Scanner app from the Market (or any other QR reader) and scan the QR image.

Tutorial: Turn any url into a QR code from within your browser in just a few seconds.

But What About Chrome2Phone?

Chrome2Phone (or FoxToPhone) aims to make it even easier to pass information like this around but consider this:

  • Chrome2Phone functionality is only available on phones running Froyo, which means some phones will never receive it.

15
Sep
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Change Keyboard Automatically With Orientation, Using KeyboardManager [Root][Tutorial]

Posted by in Applications, Tips & Tutorials

One of the more obvious settings missing from Android is the ability to use one keyboard, say Swype, in portrait orientation, and then automatically switch to another keyboard when the phone is in landscape.

This feature has been oft-requested, and is something that is strangely missing from many mobile OSes. Well, the clever clogs over at the XDA-Developers Nexus One forum have managed to figure it out with a little workaround.

However, the hack only works for those on rooted phones with access to the /system partition as Read-Write. Thankfully that is most phones, nowadays. In the words of the hack’s creator, ne0fhyk:

The application is rather simple so far.

27
Aug
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[App Of The Week + Giveaway] Tasker: Automate Your Android + 20 Free Tasker Licenses (£3.99 Each)

Posted by in App Reviews, Applications, Contests / Giveaways, Reviews
Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Have you ever wished your phone would just automatically silence itself while you're at work? Or maybe that it would immediately start Pandora when you plug in your headphones? Wish no longer: Tasker's got you covered.

This contest is now over. We have selected the winners - see if you are one of them towards the bottom of the page.

Tasker's goal is to automate (you guessed it) tasks on your Android device. This may sound a little trivial at first blush. But make no mistake, Tasker is anything but a trivial application. In fact, I can honestly say that Tasker is the single most feature-rich Android app I have ever used.

04
Nov
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Auto Formatting Android XML Files With Eclipse

Posted by in Development, Tips & Tutorials
Last Updated: April 16th, 2010

This post and all its comments were migrated from Artem's personal blog beerpla.net when Android Police launched. If you would like to visit the original post there, please click here.

In this article I will describe the problem I've had with Eclipse's handling of XML file formatting as well as the best way to fix it.

I use Eclipse to do my Android development for a few reasons:

  • it's the only IDE fully supported by the Android dev team
  • it has a visual Layout/Resources builder that transforms XML files into corresponding visual representations
  • it's free and open source
  • I've been using Eclipse for many years and am very familiar with it

In order to use the visual features in Eclipse when developing for Android, you need to install the ADT plugin provided by Google

The Problem

However, one thing about Eclipse Android development has bothered me for a while - and that is XML formatting by the visual tools.

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